“It’s most unfortunate, Maude, at just this time. It leaves the whole matter in the hands of Lane.”
At the mention of Lane, which her father accompanied by a keen glance, she flushed a little and bit her lip. I wondered whether it meant more than that, of the two suitors, her father obviously preferred Barnes.
Euston had called to see Barnes, and, as the doctor led him up the hall again, Miss Euston rejoined us.
“You need not drive us back,” thanked Kennedy. “Just drop us at the Subway. I’ll let you know the moment I have arrived at any conclusion.”
On the train we happened to run across a former classmate, Morehead, who had gone into the brokerage business.
“Queer about that Barnes case, isn’t it?” suggested Kennedy, after the usual greetings were over. Then, without suggesting that we were more than casually interested, “What does the Street think of it?”
“It is queer,” rejoined Morehead. “All the boys down-town are talking about it—wondering how it will affect the transit of the gold shipments. I don’t know what would happen if there should be a hitch. But they ought to be able to run the thing through all right.”
“It’s a pretty ticklish piece of business, then?” I suggested.
“Well, you know the state of the market just now—a little push one way or the other means a lot. And I suppose you know that the insiders on the Street have boosted Continental Express up until it is practically one of the ‘war stocks,’ too. Well, good-by—here’s my station.”
We had scarcely returned to the laboratory, however, when a car drove up furiously and a young man bustled in to see us.
“You do not know me,” he introduced, “but I am Rodman Lane, general manager of the Continental Express. You know our company has had charge of the big shipments of gold and securities to New York. I suppose you’ve read about what happened to Barnes, our treasurer. I don’t know anything about it—haven’t even time to find out. All I know is that it puts more work on me, and I’m nearly crazy already.”
I watched him narrowly.
“We’ve had little trouble of any kind so far,” he hurried on, “until just now I learned that all the roads over which we are likely to send the shipments have been finding many more broken rails than usual.”
Kennedy had been following him keenly.
“I should like to see some samples of them,” he observed.
“You would?” said Lane, eagerly. “I’ve a couple of sections sawed from rails down at my office, where I asked the officials to send them.”
We made a hurried trip down to the express company’s office. Kennedy examined the sections of rails minutely with a strong pocket-lens.
“No ordinary break,” he commented. “You can see that it was an explosive that was used—an explosive well and properly tamped down with wet clay. Without tamping, the rails would have been bent, not broken.”
“Done by wreckers, then?” Lane asked.
“Certainly not defective rails,” replied Kennedy. “Still, I don’t think you need worry so much about them for the next train. You know what to guard against. Having been discovered, whoever they are, they’ll probably not try it again. It’s some new wrinkle that must be guarded against.”
It was small comfort, but Craig was accustomed to being brutally frank.
“Have you taken any other precautions now that you didn’t take before?”
“Yes,” replied Lane, slowly; “the railroad has been experimenting with wireless on its trains. We have placed wireless on ours, too. They can’t cut us off by cutting wires. Then, of course, as before, we shall use a pilot-train to run ahead and a strong guard on the train itself. But now I feel that there may be something else that we can do. So I have come to you.”
“When does the next shipment start?” asked Kennedy.
“Tomorrow, from Halifax.”
Kennedy appeared to be considering something.
“The trouble,” he said, at length, “is likely to be at this end. Perhaps before the train starts something may happen that will tell us just what additional measures to take as it approaches New York.”
While Kennedy was at work with the blood-soaked gauze that he had taken from Barnes, I could do nothing but try to place the relative positions of the various actors in the little drama that was unfolding. Lane himself puzzled me. Sometimes I felt almost sure that he knew that Miss Euston had come to Kennedy, and that he was trying, in this way, to keep in touch with what was being done for Barnes.
Some things I knew already. Barnes was comparatively wealthy, and had evidently the stamp of approval of Maude Euston’s father. As for Lane, he was far from wealthy, although ambitious.
The company was in a delicate situation where an act of omission would count for as much as an act of commission. Whoever could foresee what was going to happen might capitalize that information for much money. If there was a plot and Barnes had been a victim, what was its nature? I recalled Miss Euston’s overheard conversation in the tea-room. Both names had been mentioned. In short, I soon found myself wondering whether some one might not have tempted Lane either to do or not to do something.
“I wish you’d go over to the St. Germaine, Walter,” remarked Kennedy, at length, looking up from his work. “Don’t tell Miss Euston of Lane’s visit. But ask her if she will keep an eye out for that woman she heard talking—and the man, too. They may drop in again. And tell her that if she hears anything else, no matter how trivial, about Barnes, she must let me know.”
I was glad of the commission. Not only had I been unable to arrive anywhere in my conjectures, but it was something even to have a chance to talk with a girl like Maude Euston.
Fortunately I found her at home and, though she was rather disappointed that I had nothing to report, she received me graciously, and we spent the rest of the evening watching the varied life of the fashionable hostelry in the hope of chancing on the holders of the strange conversation in the tea-room.
Once in a while an idea would occur to her of some one who was in a position to keep her informed if anything further happened to Barnes, and she would despatch a messenger with a little note. Finally, as it grew late and the adventuress of the tea-room episode seemed unlikely to favor the St. Germaine with her presence again that night, I made my excuses, having had the satisfaction only of having delivered Kennedy’s message, without accomplishing anything more. In fact, I was still unable to determine whether there was any sentiment stronger than sympathy that prompted her to come to Kennedy about Barnes. As for Lane, his name was scarcely mentioned except when it was necessary.
It was early the next morning that I rejoined Craig at the laboratory. I found him studying the solution which he had extracted from the blood-soaked gauze after first removing the blood in a little distilled water.
Before him was his new spectroscope, and I could see that now he was satisfied with what the uncannily delicate light-detective had told him. He pricked his finger and let a drop of blood fall into a little fresh distilled water, some of which he placed in the spectroscope.
“Look through it,” he said. “Blood diluted with water shows the well-known dark bands between D and E, known as the oxyhemoglobin absorption.” I looked as he indicated and saw the dark bands. “Now,” he went on, “I add some of this other liquid.”
He picked up a bottle of something with a faint greenish tinge.
“See the bands gradually fade?”
I watched, and indeed they did diminish in intensity and finally disappear, leaving an uninterrupted